Bellwether Trials. Alexandra D. Lahav*

Transcription

1 Bellwether Trials Alexandra D. Lahav* Introduction I. Bellwether Trials A. Trying Thousands of Asbestos Cases B. Adjudicating Human Rights Abuses II. The Policy Arguments for Bellwether Trials A. The Jury Right B. The Substantive Law III. Objections to Bellwether Trials A. The Reference Class Problem and Distributive Justice B. The Autonomy Objection and Due Process C. The Seventh Amendment A Hybrid Jury Right Nonmutual Issue Preclusion Streamlining Procedures Remittitur IV. A Model Bellwether Trial Procedure Conclusion Introduction At the core of the controversy over mass torts lies a fundamental question: what justifies collective litigation? The conventional understanding of litigation is individualistic, founded on an eighteenth-century common-law tradition that everyone should have his own day in court. 1 For this reason, tort law scholars and judges have consistently asserted that procedures aimed at achieving collective justice in mass tort cases such as class actions and aggregative litigation must be limited by an individual, process-based right to participation. 2 Those * Associate Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law. J.D., Harvard Law School. Many thanks to Jon Bauer, Paul Berman, Bethany Beyer, Robert Bone, George Conk, Anne Dailey, Amanda Frost, Mort Horwitz, Pnina Lahav, Henry Monaghan, Jeremy Paul, Sachin Pandya, Ariel Porat, Issachar Rosen-Zvi, Alex Stein, and participants in workshops at the University of Connecticut, Tel Aviv University, and Washington University in St. Louis School of Law for their thoughtful responses and criticisms, and to Lee Sims and Tom Hemstock for assistance in collecting research materials. All errors are my own. 1 Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 762 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). 2 See Amchem Prods. Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 627 (1997) (overturning asbestos settlement based on concerns regarding rights of individual plaintiffs); Robert G. Bone, Statisti- April 2008 Vol. 76 No

2 2008] Bellwether Trials 577 scholars who believe pure collective justice is possible rely solely on efficiency arguments. 3 Modern torts scholarship has thus been limited to two opposing rationales: individual justice based on autonomy values or collective justice based on efficiency values. This Article presents a third argument for collective justice based on democratic participation values. It urges that we re-envision the tort trial as a democratic enterprise rather than only an individual s day in court. This argument draws an analogy to the theory of deliberative democracy, which values participation as a means of encouraging public deliberation and believes that contentious issues are best addressed through deliberative processes. 4 Holding public trials and allowing juries to determine outcomes constitutes a deliberative process in which reasoned arguments are presented to citizens who participate in decisionmaking. Although the dichotomy between autonomy and efficiency values remains the bedrock of mass torts scholarship, trial judges have been using a procedure that embodies this democratic justification: the bellwether trial. A bellwether is a sheep that leads a flock, around whose neck a bell is hung. 5 In a bellwether trial procedure, a random sample of cases large enough to yield reliable results is tried to a jury. A judge, jury, or participating lawyers use the resulting verdicts as a basis for resolving the remaining cases. Judges currently use bellwether trials informally in mass tort litigation to assist in valuing cases cal Adjudication: Rights, Justice, and Utility in a World of Process Scarcity, 46 VAND. L. REV. 561, 650 (1993) (concluding that under a rights-based theory sampling is an acceptable form of resolving mass tort cases only in instances of extreme process scarcity); Lawrence B. Solum, Procedural Justice, 78 S. CAL. L. REV. 181, 183 (2004) (defending process-based rights to participation in litigation). 3 See, e.g., David Rosenberg, Mandatory-Litigation Class Action: The Only Option for Mass Tort Cases, 115 HARV. L. REV. 831, 853 (2002) (advocating a deterrence rationale for mass tort cases); Michael J. Saks & Peter David Blanck, Justice Improved: The Unrecognized Benefits of Aggregation and Sampling in the Trial of Mass Torts, 44 STAN. L. REV. 815, 851 (1992) (presenting utilitarian arguments in favor of using sample cases to resolve mass tort cases); Laurens Walker & John Monahan, Sampling Damages, 83 IOWA L. REV. 545, 546 (1998) (presenting efficiency arguments in favor of statistical adjudication of damages). 4 Although not discussed explicitly, this analysis draws on a rich literature on deliberative democracy. See generally JAMES S. FISHKIN, DEMOCRACY AND DELIBERATION (1991); AMY GUTMANN & DENNIS THOMPSON, WHY DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY? (2004). For a useful summary of different models of democracy and the arguments favoring and critiquing each, see Amy Gutmann, Democracy, in A COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (Robert E. Goodin & Philip Pettit eds., 1993). 5 2 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 94 (2d ed. 1989); see also In re Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 109 F.3d 1016, 1019 (5th Cir. 1997) (stating that the term is derived from the ancient practice of belling a wether (a male sheep) selected to lead his flock ).

3 578 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 and to encourage settlement. 6 Instituted as a formal procedure, bellwether trials offer an innovative way to achieve collective justice in mass tort cases because they realize the democratic policies animating the jury right and the aims of the substantive law. These trials promote a type of group typical justice that is at once participatory and collective. The original bellwether was a typical, perhaps particularly docile sheep who signaled the direction of the flock because he traveled at its center. 7 Bellwether trials also approximate a typical case through averaging. In common usage, the term bellwether refers to a leader or an indicator of future trends. Bellwether trials also lead procedure in a new direction, adapting the eighteenth-century institution of the jury trial to twenty-first century needs for collective justice. The Article begins with a description of bellwether trials using three examples: litigation arising out of the tragedy of September 11th, asbestos litigation, and a human rights class action against Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of the Philippines. These case studies illustrate the reason that courts have developed innovative procedures such as bellwether trials to deal with mass tort litigation and provide some possible permutations of the procedure. They offer insights into the political economy of litigation that results in statistical adjudication and prompt us to think more deeply about the group typical justice that these trials promote. Part II presents the policy arguments in favor of bellwether trials. Bellwether trials both realize the policies behind the right to a jury trial and the aims of the substantive law that procedures are meant to enforce. This Part begins by demonstrating that the jury right is a democratic, communal right. 8 The jury serves two central political functions. First, it provides a democratic decisionmaking body, made 6 See, e.g., Silivanch v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 333 F.3d 355, (2d Cir. 2003) (affirming use of bellwether trial to assist settlement of twenty-two cases involving Legionnaires disease on a cruise ship); Dodge v. Cotter Corp., 203 F.3d 1190, 1194 (10th Cir. 2000) (affirming use of bellwether trials to resolve case involving uranium contamination in a community). Informal bellwether trial procedures were also to be used in two cases that appear at this writing to have been largely resolved by settlement: the September 11th litigation, discussed infra Part I, and in the recent Vioxx litigation, see Case Management Order No. 3, In re Vioxx Litigation, No. 619 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. May 12, 2004), available at 7 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term is used contemptuously when referring figuratively to individuals. 2 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 94 (2d ed. 1989). 8 This fact has been asserted but rarely fully analyzed. See, e.g., Cass R. Sunstein, Rights and Their Critics, 70 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 727, (1995) (stating that the jury ensures a role for the community in adjudicative proceedings ).

4 2008] Bellwether Trials 579 up of ordinary citizens, for determining difficult questions to which there is no generally agreed upon answer. For example, juries lend legitimacy to the social process of monetizing injury. 9 Second, the jury system provides some measure of protection against systemic bias that judges may exhibit. The bellwether trial promotes both of these functions. Not only do bellwether trials realize the democratic ambitions of the jury right, they also make possible the realization of the social aims of substantive tort law including deterrence, publication of wrongs, and compensation. Collective procedures for resolving mass torts, such as bellwether trials, rely on group typicality and probabilistic reasoning rather than particularized proof. Although some argue that group typical justice is fundamentally antithetical to tort law, the foundations of probabilistic thinking necessary for achieving group typical justice already exist within the substantive tort regime. Procedure is an agent for social change as much as the substantive law is. Furthermore, procedures can change the social environment and thereby alter the policy goals thought to be worth pursuing. 10 Re-envisioning the trial as a democratic enterprise will influence the choice of substantive ends of law and make it possible to legitimately decide cases based on group typicality. This change is necessary in a world of mass industrial harms where individualized justice is increasingly difficult to achieve. Part III presents and refutes objections to bellwether trial procedures. These objections fall into three categories: distributional, autonomy-based, and Seventh Amendment objections. Distributional objections concern the difficulty of determining the variables about which inferences are to be made, of accurately awarding compensation based on statistical analysis, and of fairly distributing compensation among plaintiffs. Autonomy-based objections also form the root of due process concerns raised by group typical justice. These objections contend that bellwether trials violate a process-based right to individual participation. A final constitutional objection to the procedure is that bellwether trials violate the right to a jury trial in civil 9 The assumption here is that the process of monetizing injury is contextual and situated. See VIVIANA A. ZELIZER, PRICING THE PRICELESS CHILD (1994) (providing a cultural history of the evolving value of children s lives and labor in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries). 10 See Robert G. Bone, Lon Fuller s Theory of Adjudication and the False Dichotomy Between Dispute Resolution and Public Law Models of Litigation, 75 B.U. L. REV. 1273, 1276 (1995) (ascribing this position to legal process theorists).

5 580 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 cases. Each of these objections deserves serious consideration, but none are fatal to formalizing bellwether trial procedures. The fourth and final Part proposes a model constitutional bellwether trial procedure. I. Bellwether Trials The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, left in their wake thousands of bereaved families and injured individuals. Congress created the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund, an administrative body, to rationalize compensation for these victims. 11 By participating in this expedited, administrative process, the families and victims of the attacks gave up their right to sue. 12 The fund distributed $7.049 billion to victims of the terrorist attacks who filed claims. 13 Ninety-seven percent of the victims and their families participated in the administrative procedure instead of pursuing court cases. 14 Fortyone plaintiffs, representing forty-two victims and their families, filed lawsuits in federal court. 15 These forty-one cases were consolidated before a single judge, the Honorable Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, in the Southern District of New York. 16 Six years after the attacks, these lawsuits were still pending. 17 As Judge Hellerstein observed, the slow pace of the litigation frustrated the plaintiffs. 18 Some of the victims were adamantly against settlement because they wanted the publicity of a trial. 19 But others, the judge believed, wanted to settle, and the only obstacle to settling those cases was that the parties could not agree on their monetary value. 20 So he proposed holding bellwether trials for selected plaintiffs who would volunteer to participate. The trials were to be for damages only; the jury would not consider questions of liability or causation. 11 September 11th Victims Compensation Fund of 2001, Pub. L. No , tit. IV, , 115 Stat. 230, Id. 405(c)(3)(B), 115 Stat. at See 1 KENNETH R. FEINBERG ET AL., FINAL REPORT OF THE SPECIAL MASTER FOR THE SEPTEMBER 11TH VICTIM COMPENSATION FUND OF 2001, at 1 (2004). 14 Id. 15 See Opinion Supporting Order to Sever Issues of Damages and Liability in Selected Cases, and to Schedule Trial of Issues of Damages at 3, In re September 11th Litigation, No. 21 MC 97 (AKH) (S.D.N.Y. July 5, 2007), available at 21MC97_opinion_ pdf. 16 Id. at Id. at Id. at Id. 20 Id. at 4.

6 2008] Bellwether Trials 581 The results were intended to be available to other plaintiffs and to defendants to assist them in valuing cases for settlement. 21 As a result of the decision to conduct bellwether trials using reverse bifurcation, fourteen of the cases have settled so far. 22 This is how the bellwether trial is used today. Cases are chosen, not quite randomly, for trial on a particular issue. 23 The results of the trials are not binding on the other litigants in the group. 24 The outcomes can be used by the parties to assist in settlement, but the parties can also ignore these results and insist on an individual trial. 25 There was a time, however, when courts experimented with binding bellwether trials. Those experiments were prematurely ended, perhaps due to the influence of a Fifth Circuit decision holding bellwether trials unconstitutional on Seventh Amendment grounds. 26 In a binding bellwether trial procedure, the court will choose a random sample of cases to try to a jury. 27 The judge may then bifurcate the cases into liability and damages phases, or perhaps even trifurcate them into liability, causation, and damages phases. 28 The parties will try each bellwether case before a jury that will render a verdict in that case. 29 Finally, the results of the bellwether trials will be extrapolated to the remaining plaintiffs. 30 The underlying principle of such an extrapolation is that the bellwether plaintiffs are typical of the rest of the plaintiff group such that the results of the bellwether trials represent the likely outcome of their cases as well. 31 What these extrapolation plaintiffs get in a bellwether trial procedure is not individuated justice but rather group typical justice. The following example explains how the extrapolation process might work. Imagine that a court tries 100 sample cases and 50% of 21 Id. 22 See Order, In re September 11th Litigation, No. 21 MC 97 (AKH) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 17, 2007), available at (ordering fourteen cases closed due to settlement). 23 Richard O. Faulk, Robert E. Meadows & Kevin L. Colbert, Building a Better Mousetrap? A New Approach to Trying Mass Tort Cases, 29 TEX. TECH L. REV. 779, (1998). 24 See In re Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 109 F.3d 1016, 1019 (5th Cir. 1997). 25 Id. 26 Cimino v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 151 F.3d 297, (5th Cir. 1998). 27 See, e.g., In re Chevron, 109 F.3d at See, e.g., Cimino v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 751 F. Supp. 649, 653 (E.D. Tex. 1990) (trifurcating asbestos case into three phases: failure-to-warn, causation, and damages), rev d, 151 F.3d 297 (5th Cir. 1998). 29 See, e.g., In re Chevron, 109 F.3d at Faulk, Meadows & Colbert, supra note 23, at Id.

7 582 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 them result in plaintiff victories. Of these 50, half are awarded $200 and the other half are awarded $300. Taking all of these results into account, and counting the defense verdicts as $0, the average award would be $125. Under a simple averaging regime, every plaintiff would receive $125. If this result seems too rough, the court could calculate separate averages based on relevant variables. The following examples illuminate both the mechanics of binding bellwether trials and their potential as a solution for courts dealing with mass tort cases. A. Trying Thousands of Asbestos Cases Asbestos is the paradigmatic story of modern mass tort litigation. Although there are some unique features to the asbestos litigation, it raised for the first time many of the recurring issues in mass tort litigation. This story has been told at length elsewhere, but it is worth briefly reviewing to understand why a judge might think binding bellwether trials are the best solution to the seemingly intractable problems posed by mass torts. 32 Although it is a useful product, asbestos is also extremely harmful. Manufacturers were aware of the risks of asbestos exposure by the 1940s, but they did not warn employees or provide adequate protection for them. 33 As a result, millions of workers were exposed to asbestos and suffered injuries such as mesothelioma (a deadly cancer), other cancers, asbestosis, and pleural abnormalities. 34 A 2004 study estimated that nearly 730,000 people filed asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits, many for nonmalignant injuries. 35 The courts are overwhelmed by the asbestos docket and have experimented with various types of innovative procedures to deal with this influx of cases. 36 Efforts at global settlements failed due to the limitations on settlement 32 For a thorough review of the development of asbestos litigation, see STEPHEN J. CAR- ROLL ET AL., RAND, ASBESTOS LITIGATION xvii xxviii (2005). For an accessible, shorter analysis, see Deborah Hensler, Asbestos Litigation in the United States: Triumph and Failure of the Civil Justice System, 12 CONN. INS. L.J. 255 (2006). 33 CARROLL, supra note 32, at xviii xix. 34 Id. 35 Id. at xxiv. 36 Id. at xxi xxiii.

8 2008] Bellwether Trials 583 imposed by the Supreme Court. 37 Despite repeated pleas from judges, legislative intervention has not been forthcoming. 38 In 1990, Judge Robert Parker, then a federal district court judge for the Eastern District of Texas, had approximately 3000 wrongful death suits arising out of asbestos exposure before him. 39 The court could not have tried all these suits in a reasonable time frame, so he adopted an innovative procedure: binding bellwether trials. He approved a trial plan that was to proceed in three phases. The first phase provided class-wide determinations of failure to warn and punitive damages. 40 The second phase determined causation. 41 The court intended to have a jury establish asbestos exposure on a craft and worksite basis during the relevant time periods, rather than on the basis of individual proof. 42 Instead, this phase was resolved by stipulation, with defendants reserving their right to appeal. 43 The third phase, which is the one that concerns us here, was the damages phase. 44 Judge Parker selected 160 cases to be tried before two jury panels. 45 Each jury was told that the causation requirement had been met and was charged only with determining damages in each individual case before it. 46 The trials took 133 days, involving hundreds of witnesses and thousands of exhibits. 47 The effort expended in the proceeding was enormous, and Judge Parker noted, If all that is accomplished by this is the closing of 169 cases then it was not worth the effort and will not be repeated See Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, (1999); Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, (1997). For a trenchant critique of attempts to settle asbestos cases globally, see Susan P. Koniak, Feasting While the Widow Weeps: Georgine v. Amchem Products, Inc., 80 CORNELL L. REV (1995). 38 The argument is sensibly made that a nationwide administrative claims processing regime would provide the most secure, fair, and efficient means of compensating victims of asbestos exposure. Congress, however, has not adopted such a solution. Amchem, 521 U.S. at See Cimino v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 751 F. Supp. 649, 653 (E.D. Tex. 1990), rev d, 151 F.3d 297 (5th Cir. 1998). 40 Id. at Id. 42 Id. 43 Cimino v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 151 F.3d 297, (5th Cir. 1998). 44 Cimino, 751 F. Supp. at Id. at See id. at Id. at Id.

9 584 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 Of the 160 bellwether verdicts, the court remitted 35 and 12 were awarded no damages. 49 The court allocated the cases into five disease categories and averaged the awards, including the zero awards, within those categories. 50 The average verdict in each disease category was mesothelioma, $1,224,333; lung cancer, $545,200; other cancer, $917,785; asbestosis, $543,783; pleural disease, $558, After hearing expert testimony, the judge determined that these cases were typical or representative of the remaining plaintiffs. 52 The judge held a hearing in which he assigned the remaining cases to one of the five disease categories. 53 He made an award in each case according to the average award for that disease category. 54 Thus, for example, each plaintiff with mesothelioma was awarded $1,224,333 even those whose cases had not actually been tried. The plaintiffs agreed to this procedure, likely because the alternative was an untenably long wait for a trial. The defendants, by contrast, objected and appealed. 55 They argued that under Texas law and the Seventh Amendment they were entitled to an individual trial on causation and damages for each plaintiff. 56 The Fifth Circuit, perhaps hoping for legislative intervention, waited eight years before reversing the district court s trial plan. 57 The circuit court rejected the bellwether trial procedure, reasoning that the Seventh Amendment and Texas law entitled the defendants to individual trials against each plaintiff on both causation and damages. 58 The cases were remanded to Judge Parker. 59 Judge Parker s experience encapsulates the political economy of mass tort adjudication. Most of these cases arise out of some type of regulatory failure, come to the courts in masses that are beyond the capabilities of the courts to adequately adjudicate one by one, and 49 Cimino v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 151 F.3d 297, 300 n.3 (5th Cir. 1998). 50 Id. at Id. at 297, Cimino, 751 F. Supp. at 664 ( The Court is of the opinion that the distribution of variables between the samples and their respective subclasses is comparable. ). Because the court relied on the plaintiffs expert, who analyzed information provided by the plaintiffs only, this conclusion was suspect. 53 Cimino, 151 F.3d at 300, 305, 309. The court only entered judgment in five extrapolation cases. See id. 54 Id. 55 Id. at Id. at Id. at 297, rev g Cimino, 751 F. Supp Id. at Id. at 321.

10 2008] Bellwether Trials 585 there is little hope of a legislative solution. The congressional response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th is a notable exception to this rule. To put it more directly: the courts are stuck with mass tort cases, and these cases continue to multiply. For these reasons, bellwether trials are a promising alternative for promoting justice. B. Adjudicating Human Rights Abuses Mass torts can take many forms. Consider, for example, the class action litigation against the estate of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. 60 Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines on September 21, Shortly thereafter, he ordered ratification of a constitution revised to keep him in power. 62 He issued several orders maintaining his power, including General Orders 2 and 2A, which authorized the arrest of dissidents. 63 Anyone who was either an opponent of the Marcos regime or perceived as one could be arrested and detained. 64 Persons arrested by the government on suspicion of opposition were tortured in a variety of ways. Some of the more disturbing practices included submerging the heads of prisoners in toilet bowls full of excrement, the placement of a cloth over the mouth and nose of a prisoner and pouring water over it to produce a drowning sensation, near suffocation of prisoners by placing a plastic bag over their heads, electric shocks to the genitals, rape and sexual molestation, and long terms of solitary confinement while tied with chains or rope. 65 Some prisoners disappeared and were presumed killed, some were summarily executed, others survived. 66 Marcos ruled the Philippines as a dictator from 1972 until 1986, during which period the practices described above occurred. 67 In 1986 he fled to Hawaii with his family and loyal supporters. Lawsuits were filed against him, and subsequently his estate, in Hawaii under the Alien Tort Claims Act 68 and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 60 The history provided here is taken from the district court opinion in In re Estate of Marcos Human Rights Litigation, 910 F. Supp (D. Haw. 1995), aff d sub nom. Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767 (9th Cir. 1996). 61 Id. at Id. 63 Id. 64 Id. 65 Id. at Id. at Id. at Alien Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C (2000).

11 586 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76: ( TVPA ). 69 One such lawsuit was a class action known as In re Estate of Marcos Human Rights Litigation. 70 The class action lawsuit against the Marcos estate proceeded in three phases: a liability phase, a punitive damages phase, and a compensatory damages phase. In the liability phase, the jury found defendants liable to 10,059 plaintiffs for torture, summary execution, and disappearance. 71 This was followed by a punitive damages phase, in which the jury awarded the plaintiffs $1.2 billion. 72 Finally, the court oversaw a compensatory damages phase. This last phase is the most interesting from a procedural perspective. First, the court established an opt-in class. 73 After the court invalidated some claims, a total of 9541 claims remained. Of these, the district court randomly selected 137 sample cases. 74 A special master traveled to the Philippines, where he conducted depositions and reviewed documents. 75 Utilizing this information, he made preliminary validity and damages findings with regard to each of the plaintiffs in the sample group. 76 He recommended that 6 of the 137 claims be found invalid. 77 His damages recommendation in each case utilized the following factors: (1) whether the abuse claimed came within one of the definitions, with which the Court charged the jury at the trial..., of torture, summary execution, or disappearance; (2) whether the Philippine military or paramilitary was... involved in such abuse; and (3) whether the abuse occurred during the period September 1972 through February He recommended a 5% invalidity rate because he found 6 of the 137 sample claims (4.37%) invalid. 79 The average recommended 69 Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, 28 U.S.C note (2000). 70 In re Estate of Marcos Human Rights Litig., 910 F. Supp (D. Haw. 1995), aff d sub nom. Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767 (9th Cir. 1996). 71 Id. at Id. at Contra Kern v. Siemens, 393 F.3d 120, 128 (2d Cir. 2004) (invalidating opt-in damages classes). 74 The number of sample cases was chosen based on expert testimony that a sample size of 137 would result in a 95 percent statistical probability that the same percentage determined to be valid among the examined claims would be applicable to the totality of claims filed. Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767, 782 (9th Cir. 1996). The margin of error used was five percent, that being prevalent in the social sciences. Id. at Id. at Id. 77 Id. at Id. at Id. at 783.

12 2008] Bellwether Trials 587 award for the 64 torture claims was $51,719; the average of the 50 summary execution claims was $128,515; and the average of the 17 disappearance claims was $107, The special master further recommended that the total award to the class be determined by multiplying the number of valid claims in each subclass by the average award for claimants in that subclass and adding to this number the awards for the sample claimants. 81 These recommendations were then presented to the jury along with expert testimony that the methodology used by the special master was statistically sound. 82 The jury deliberated for five days and reached conclusions close to, but different from, the recommendations of the special master on the individual sample claims, indicating that the jury had independently evaluated the evidence. 83 The jury accepted the special master s recommendations with respect to the extrapolation claims without changes. 84 The jury s differences from the special master included both increased awards on some claims and decreased awards in others. 85 The Ninth Circuit upheld this procedure, finding that it did not violate defendants right to due process of law. 86 The Marcos human rights litigation benefited from some unique circumstances for a mass tort. Choice of law was not an issue. The TVPA does not specify how damages are to be determined, and so the courts have developed federal common law to address damages issues in such cases. 87 In a domestic mass tort case, by contrast, differing state laws present a barrier to certification of a class action. 88 In this regard, the case was easier to certify as a class action and therefore 80 Id. 81 Id. The total compensatory award recommended by the special master was $767,491,493. Id. 82 Id. at Id. The same jury that had made the determination on liability and punitive damages was then reconvened to evaluate the testimony gathered by the special master and his recommendations, and to award damages. Id. 84 Id. 85 Id. at 784 n.9. One aspect of the extrapolation that raises due process concerns is that the jury found that only two (rather than four) of the sample claims were invalid. Id. at 784 n.10. Nevertheless, the jury awarded the extrapolation amount based on a five percent invalidity rate as recommended by the special master. Id. The invalidity rate should probably have been reduced to reflect the jury s findings. 86 Id. at In re Estate of Marcos Human Rights Litig., 910 F. Supp. 1460, 1469 (D. Haw. 1995), aff d sub nom. Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767 (9th Cir. 1996). 88 See, e.g., In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, (7th Cir. 1995) (reversing class action certification in mass tort case because class members were subject to multiple and conflicting state laws).

13 588 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 more amenable to group typical justice. Nevertheless, individuation still stood as a potential objection to class treatment. Each plaintiff surely had his or her own unique and harrowing story of torture or murder and its consequences. The fact that the court upheld statistical adjudication in this case illustrates the possibility of achieving group typical justice. The procedure used in this human rights litigation allowed the initial damages determinations to be made by an expert and thereafter evaluated and ratified by a jury. 89 This shows that the jury can be involved in multiple phases of the process. The jury can determine damages in individual cases and can also review suggested extrapolation options and thereby lend legitimacy to the extrapolation process. Nobody in the Marcos litigation received an individual jury trial, but the group of plaintiffs did. The litigation achieved several objectives: compensation, publicity, and a process that included a jury evaluation of the wrongs committed. In the absence of the procedure utilized by the court, it is almost certain that the plaintiffs in this case would never have received a day in court. Group typicality, as these examples illustrate, is not perfect justice. Most of the individual plaintiffs cannot participate directly. The definition of the group may be inaccurate, such as by including persons with significantly different characteristics. It is furthermore certain that the average award this procedure provides to extrapolation plaintiffs will differ from what they would have received in an individual jury trial. The averaging process redistributes money from the highest-value claims to the lower-value claims, even within a group of similarly situated individuals. 90 But bellwether trials are a far more palatable method for resolving mass litigation than the alternatives: standing on the sidelines waiting to be heard or settling en mass. As Judge Weinstein observed in a recent opinion, [i]n mass fraud cases with hundreds of thousands or millions of injured the cost of one-on-one procedures is insuperable and unsuitable for either a jury or a bench trial. The consequence of requiring individual proof from each smoker would be to allow a defendant which has injured millions of people and caused billions of dollars in damages to escape almost all liability Contra In re Fibreboard Corp., 893 F.2d 706 (5th Cir. 1990) (rejecting similar lump sum procedure on due process and state law grounds). 90 Bone, supra note 2, at Schwab v. Philip Morris U.S.A., Inc., 449 F. Supp. 2d 992 (E.D.N.Y. 2006) (certifying

14 2008] Bellwether Trials 589 Despite the significant problems group typical justice poses, bellwether trials are a good second-best solution to this difficult problem. II. The Policy Arguments for Bellwether Trials The primary purpose of procedure is to realize the substantive aims of the law. 92 But procedure and substance have a reciprocal relationship. Procedures not only realize the aims of the substantive law, they also influence its direction. Furthermore, some procedures, such as the jury trial, also have an intrinsic value. 93 The bellwether trial procedure realizes both the aims of the jury right and the aims of substantive tort law. Bellwether trials also affect the aims of the substantive tort law in mass cases by making group typical justice possible. A. The Jury Right Two policy goals underpin the right to a jury trial: citizen participation and prevention of systemic bias. The jury trial introduces democratic values into the court system by involving citizens in judicial decisionmaking. Such citizen participation is an independent civic good. The jury trial also helps avoid the systemic bias that might develop if all cases were decided by professional judges. These two arguments are interrelated because the introduction of democratic decisionmakers avoids the bias of an entrenched judicial elite. Bellwether trial procedures realize both of these policy aims. The debates around the right to a jury in the American colonies, and leading up to the ratification of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights, illuminate the reasons for the strong American adherence to the jury right. 94 This is not to say that there are not other historical and contemporary sources to support the policies behind the RICO class action on behalf of smokers of light cigarettes and holding that use of statistical evidence to establish liability and damages did not violate defendants due process rights). 92 This is what John Rawls called perfect procedural justice, which presents an independent criterion for fairness and a procedure that provides that outcome. JOHN RAWLS, A THEORY OF JUSTICE 85 (1971). 93 The intrinsic value of procedure can be alternatively stated as pure procedural justice, wherein whatever result is reached by the procedure is understood to be fair so long as the procedure is correctly followed. Id. at 86. See Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Elec. Coop., Inc., 356 U.S. 525, (1958) (describing the trial by jury in civil cases as an essential characteristic of the federal system). 94 By comparison, the jury right has declined in other common-law jurisdictions. See generally WORLD JURY SYSTEMS (Neil Vidmar ed., 2000); Hein Kotz, Civil Justice Systems in Europe and the United States, 13 DUKE J. COMP. & INT L L. 61, 73 (2005) (describing the decline of the civil jury in England, Canada, and Australia). Although the jury right has been eroded in the United States, it still remains relatively strong.

15 590 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 jury right or that an originalist approach is the best method of establishing the principles animating the jury right. 95 Nor do I provide an exhaustive history here. The point is merely to revive the rationale for the jury right articulated in and around The focus on early American materials is based largely on the fact that these sources remain compelling and is in part responsive to the focus on originalism embedded in Seventh Amendment doctrine. 97 Many American colonists saw the jury as an antidote to the oppressive rule of British governors. The jury was understood as an egalitarian, democratic institution in contrast to equity courts, where the royally appointed governor was the decisionmaker. Thus, some colonists were more interested in the decisionmaker than the substantive and procedural differences between equity and common-law courts. Whereas in England equity courts were understood as an antidote to the rigidity of the common law, colonists were more concerned with the antidemocratic implications of royal control over equity courts. 98 Equity served as a reminder of the limits on civic participation. The very existence of chancery courts, with their long tradition in English history, made it apparent that, in America, if the conscience of the King was not the source of equity jurisdiction, then a more popular legislative source must be identified My use of historical materials serves to inform the discussion about the function of the jury, not to take a position with respect to the active and fascinating debate on the uses (and misuses) of originalism in constitutional interpretation. See, e.g., JACK N. RAKOVE, ORIGINAL MEANINGS: POLITICS AND IDEAS IN THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION (1996) (describing and critiquing originalist jurisprudence); Jack Balkin, Original Meaning and Constitutional Redemption, 24 CONST. COMMENT. (forthcoming 2008) (articulating a theory of constitutional interpretation that relies on fidelity to the original meaning and its underlying principles); Reva Siegel & Robert Post, Originalism as a Political Practice: The Right s Living Constitution, 75 FORDHAM L. REV. 545, (2006) (critiquing originalism s pretensions). 96 This foray is probably best described as lawyer s history. For a discussion of the history and politics of lawyer s or law office history, see LAURA KALMAN, THE STRANGE CA- REER OF LEGAL LIBERALISM (1996). The use of historical materials in this manner is largely unavoidable in this analysis, but the reader should be aware that this work does not purport to provide a truly nuanced historical account. See Alfred H. Kelly, Clio and the Court: An Illicit Love Affair, 1965 SUP. CT. REV. 119 (critiquing the Supreme Court s use of history in constitutional cases). 97 The test for determining whether the jury right attaches is referred to as the historical test and is based on the distinction between causes of action at law (where a jury was available) and in equity (where a jury was not available) as they were understood in The origin of this test is Justice Story s circuit opinion in United States v. Wonson, 28 F. Cas. 745, 750 (C.C.D. Mass. 1812) (No. 16,750). This approach is analyzed and critiqued in Part III.C, infra. 98 Stanley N. Katz, The Politics of Law in Colonial America: Controversies over Chancery Courts and Equity Law in the Eighteenth Century, in 5 PERSPECTIVES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 257, 272 (Donald Fleming & Bernard Bailyn eds., 1971). 99 Id. at 283. At the same time, Katz points out that the approach to the politics of law and

16 2008] Bellwether Trials 591 The jury injected the popular will into the court system. As Thomas Jefferson explained in 1789: We think in America it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government as far as they are capable of exercising it.... Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted from the Legislative or Judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the Legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making them. 100 The argument that the jury right serves as a bulwark against systemic judicial corruption received support across political lines. For example, the Antifederalists opposed ratification of the original Constitution in part because Article III contained no right to a trial by jury in civil cases. They worried that debtors, as a group, would be treated unfairly by distant federal judges. 101 Antifederalists argued, We know that the trial by a jury of the vicinage is one of the greatest securities for property. If causes are to be decided at such a great distance, the poor will be oppressed Thomas Jefferson expressed the same view more radically: But we all know that permanent judges acquire an Esprit de corps and may be tempted by bribery and misled by a spirit of party, a devotion to the Executive or the Legislative, and [i]t is left therefore to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any biass [sic] whatever in any cause, to take upon themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. 103 Federalists seem to have agreed on this point, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 83, The strongest argument in its favour is that it is a security against corruption. 104 When introducing the bill to Congress that ultimately became the Bill of Rights, James Madison described the jury right variously as that great bulwark of personal chancery was inconsistent during the colonial era. Even vociferous opponents of chancery courts sometimes served as chancellors. Id. at Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Arnoux (July 19, 1789), in 5 THE FOUNDERS CONSTITUTION 364 (Philip B. Kurland & Ralph Lerner eds., 1987). The political impetus for this statement may have had to do with Jefferson s relationship with Chief Justice John Marshall. On their difficult relationship from Marshall s perspective, see R. KENT NEWMYER, JOHN MAR- SHALL AND THE HEROIC AGE OF THE SUPREME COURT (2001). 101 See Matthew P. Harrington, The Economic Origins of the Seventh Amendment, 87 IOWA L. REV. 145, (2002) (describing the role of debt in the establishment of the jury right). 102 Debates of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention, reprinted in THE COMPLETE BILL OF RIGHTS: THE DRAFTS, DEBATES, SOURCES AND ORIGINS 523 (Neil H. Cogan ed., 1997). 103 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Arnoux, supra note 100, at THE FEDERALIST NO. 83 (Alexander Hamilton), reprinted in 5 THE FOUNDER S CONSTI- TUTION, supra note 100, at 360.

17 592 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 safety, one of the great securities of the rights of the people, and a right resulting from the social compact which regulates the action of the community. 105 Individual jurors may be biased, as human beings sometimes are, but they will never introduce systemic bias to the courts. This is because a different jury sits in every case and the decision rests in the hands of twelve rather than one person. Bellwether trials promote both the aims of democratic decisionmaking and protection against systemic bias. The only way to understand how bellwether trials can promote these goals is to evaluate them within the context of the political economy of modern mass litigation. When trials are not available to litigants for structural reasons, it is arguable that these litigants have no right to a trial by jury in a meaningful sense. Because individual jury trials are not a genuine possibility, modern mass litigation is both antidemocratic and prone to bias in decisionmaking. Bellwether trials ameliorate these problems. In mass tort cases, the number of plaintiffs is enormous. The most extreme example is asbestos litigation: 106,069 cases were consolidated in multidistrict litigation in the federal courts alone. 106 The court system lacks the resources to provide an individual trial for each asbestos plaintiff. Instead, individual suits languish or are aggregated, consolidated, or, in the most unlikely case, certified as a class action. 107 If the litigation is settled, either as a settlement class action or through more informal aggregative settlements, the settlement will not provide individually determined compensation. 108 A plaintiff will be made an offer based on how his injuries fit into a matrix established for the purpose of determining damages, or he will be offered a set amount regardless of his individual circumstances. In the absence of mass settlement, the economics of litigation are such that only individuals with the most valuable cases are likely to receive an adjudicated result, and even they will wait for it. Those with less valuable cases are likely to ANNALS OF CONG. 454 (Joseph Gales ed., 1834). 106 Marc Galanter, The Vanishing Trial: An Examination of Trials and Related Matters in Federal and State Courts, 1 EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD. 459, 491 (2004). 107 See, e.g., 28 U.S.C (2000) (providing for transfer of pretrial proceedings to one federal district court); FED. R. CIV. P. 23 (class actions); FED. R. CIV. P. 42(a) (consolidation). Because class certification of mass tort cases is extraordinarily difficult, these cases often result in either a settlement-only class action or aggregative settlement. See Elizabeth Cabraser, The Manageable Nationwide Class Action: A Choice of Law Legacy of Phillips Petroleum v. Shutts, 74 UMKC L. REV. 543, 545 (2006) (observing that most state court grants of class certification are for settlement purposes). 108 See Howard M. Erichson, A Typology of Aggregate Settlements, 80 NOTRE DAME L. REV (2005) (describing types of collective settlements to resolve nonclass multiparty litigation).

18 2008] Bellwether Trials 593 be excluded from the court system altogether, because bringing a case to trial is too time consuming and expensive. As a consequence, many mass tort victims face a choice between joining a mass settlement or nothing. 109 Thus, settlement is currently the only realistic option for collective resolution of mass claims, and it is of limited utility. 110 The significance of the reliance on settlement to resolve mass tort litigation is twofold. First, individual litigants will not have the leverage that a realistic threat of trial provides. 111 Second, juries do not determine damages in settled cases and individual plaintiffs are not ordinarily involved in negotiations. Instead, lawyers (in some cases with judicial oversight) determine damages awards privately. 112 As a result, the current regime violates both of the principles that animate the right to a jury trial. Settlement is undemocratic because lawyers reach settlement privately with limited judicial or client oversight. It also risks corruption or bias because these decisionmakers may have systemic interests at odds with those of the individual plaintiffs. For example, judges have the interest of reducing their dockets and may become inured to the plight of plaintiffs. Lawyers may have their own interests that are at odds with their clients and they may be tempted to trade some clients off against others to resolve large numbers of cases collectively. 113 When a trial is not available to litigants for structural or practical reasons, as is currently the case, then it is difficult to argue that these litigants have a right to a trial by jury in any meaningful sense. 109 The recent aggregate settlement of cases against Vioxx, which requires the plaintiffs lawyers to recommend the settlement to all of their clients and withdraw from cases not so settled, provides a good example of this stark choice. See Settlement Agreement Between Merck & Co., Inc. and the Counsel Listed on the Signature Pages Hereto, para , (Nov. 9, 2007) (on file with author). 110 Settlement is of limited social utility both because not all cases can be settled, see Amchem Prods. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591 (1997) (overturning asbestos settlement on the grounds that the class certification did not comport with the underlying requirements of Rule 23), and because settlements are not always beneficial. 111 See Steven Shavell, The Fundamental Divergence Between the Private and the Social Motive to Use the Legal System, 26 J. LEGAL STUD. 575, 607 (1997) (stating that the social utility of trials is to provide victims with the threat necessary to induce settlement ). 112 See Deborah R. Hensler, Revisiting the Monster: New Myths and Realities of Class Action and Other Large Scale Litigation, 11 DUKE J. COMP. & INT L L. 179, 189 (2001) (describing the dearth of individual plaintiff involvement and the quasi-administrative character of aggregative settlement). 113 See Jack B. Weinstein, Ethical Dilemmas in Mass Tort Litigation, 88 NW. U. L. REV. 469, (1994) (discussing the considerable ethical problems that the allocation of funds in settlement raises for plaintiffs attorneys).

19 594 The George Washington Law Review [Vol. 76:576 Bellwether trials, by contrast, promote democratic decisionmaking by providing a procedure for citizens to be involved in the process of determining the outcome of mass tort cases instead of abdicating this role to lawyers with minimal judicial oversight. The inclusion of democratic decisionmaking is especially important in mass tort cases. Because of their scale, mass tort cases require the courts to adopt a regulatory function, which has usually involved jettisoning the jury trial. 114 Involving the jury legitimizes court resolution of mass tort cases because it inserts an element of democratic participation. Furthermore, bellwether trials avoid the dangers of systemic corruption that plague mass settlements: the jury members have no financial interest in the outcome of the litigation and the determination of damages. They do not expect to hear multiple cases over a period of years. They will not grow weary of the cases. And they have no incentive to clear the docket. The jury members may be interested in having the trial completed more quickly in order to go back to their daily lives, but they do not stand to lose or gain anything based on the outcome of the litigation. 115 There are limits, however, to the ability of the bellwether trial to realize the principles of the jury right. Bellwether trials are centralized rather than decentralized. If only one jury hears a number of trials and makes decisions that are to be extrapolated to a larger population, then one set of jurors, rather than many sets over many years, will decide the fate of thousands of cases. 116 Centralization means that there is a greater possibility for systemic bias to enter into the process than with the baseline of ordinary individual trials. There are cures for centralization, 117 but not for the passage of time required to achieve the truly decentralized maturation of a mass tort. 114 This has often been remarked in the literature on mass torts. See, e.g., RICHARD A. NAGAREDA, MASS TORTS IN A WORLD OF SETTLEMENT (2007) (describing the use of administrative techniques in mass tort cases and proposing an administrative solution). 115 See GUIDO CALABRESI & PHILIP BOBBIT, TRAGIC CHOICES (1978) (arguing that juries are well situated to make tragic choices free from political backlash or prejudice because they are one-time players). 116 This decentralization is central to the theory of the mature mass tort. See Francis E. McGovern, Resolving Mature Mass Tort Litigation, 69 B.U. L. REV. 659, (1989). This theory has been adopted by prominent judges. See, e.g., In re Rhone-Poulenc Rohrer, Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, 1299 (7th Cir. 1995) (Posner, J.). 117 For example, multiple juries could be used instead of having a single jury determine each bellwether case. See In re Rhone-Poulenc Rohrer, 51 F.3d at 1300 (suggesting, as an alternative to centralization of mature mass torts, submitting an issue to multiple juries constituting in the aggregate a much larger and more diverse sample of decision-makers ).

20 2008] Bellwether Trials 595 The criticisms directed at the individual jury trial also apply to bellwether trials. These are too voluminous to describe in detail here, but two criticisms must be briefly addressed. 118 Critics of the jury trial have been concerned that juries cannot understand complex scientific evidence. 119 Scholars have also demonstrated that cognitive biases can affect jury decisionmaking. 120 The criticisms should be weighed against the values the jury right was meant to support. The expertise and good sense of judges, even if superior to that of many jurors, is not so infallible that it is worth undermining the democracy-promoting values of the jury trial. Human fallibility is not the exclusive province of the jury. Even with substantial scientific expertise, judges may have their own biases and their own interests, such as in minimizing litigation management. 121 Furthermore, studies show that on the whole juries and judges agree as to the outcomes of most cases. 122 The jury provides a fair and equitable decision in a given case not necessarily because the jury s determination is more likely to be objectively correct, but because the jury is part of a legitimate decisionmaking process. 123 The acceptance of criticisms based on juror limitations may one day dislodge the jury from the role of legitimate decisionmaker, but it has yet to do so. Jury decisionmaking lends greater legitimacy to nonobjective, controversial decisions such as the monetization of harm because it embodies the values of democratic participation and deliberation. Jury verdicts are understood to reflect the norms and morals of the community and this lends legitimacy to the procedure and the outcome. 124 Legitimacy is an even greater concern when lawyers, not 118 For an overview of the criticisms, see VALERIE P. HANS & NEIL VIDMAR, JUDGING THE JURY (1986). 119 Id. at See, e.g., Edward J. McCaffery et al., Framing the Jury: Cognitive Perspectives on Pain and Suffering Awards, 81 VA. L. REV (1995). 121 See, e.g., John Bronsteen, Against Summary Judgment, 75 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 533, (2007) (discussing the incentive for judges in class action lawsuits to avoid trial); Chris Guthrie, Misjudging, 7 NEV. L.J. 420, 421 (2007) ( Judges possess three sets of blinders: informational, cognitive, and attitudinal. These blinders... can be understood as obstacles to clear judgment and perception. ). 122 See HANS & VIDMAR, supra note 118, at 117 (citing study that judges and juries agreed on outcome 78% of the time, and that the remaining 22% of the time their disagreement was balanced between plaintiffs and defendants). 123 See Martin Redish, Summary Judgment and the Vanishing Trial: Implications of the Litigation Matrix, 57 STAN. L. REV. 1329, 1331 (2005). The jury is made legitimate both by long usage and by its democratic and independent qualities. It remains the primary politically legitimate means for ascertaining value within our legal system. 124 See Solum, supra note 2, at 183 (stating that a process that guarantees rights of mean-

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